ARTS

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP |  Young, fashion-conscious and eager for change, thousands of Zimbabweans spent this week partying at music concerts and open-air bars during a six-day festival hosted in the capital against all the odds. The Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA), founded in 1999, was abandoned last …

An immersion into sculpting that stimulates diverse cultural heritages By Dominic Muwanguzi Joe Nickson is an art dealer with an unusual speciality – tribal art. His IntoAfrica Galleries at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel Gift Shop area and in Luteete, about 7kms from Kampala along Gayaza Road are brimming with masks …

 Paris, France | AFP |  A new exhibition in Paris is showcasing one of the world’s biggest collections of contemporary African art — which was amassed without the collector himself ever once setting foot on the continent. “The Insiders” at the Louis Vuitton Foundation features works by 15 artists selected …

Parody, conceptualism at block printing exhibition By Dominic Muwanguzi Printmaking may be a traditional art practice much familiar with African traditional artisans but contemporary artists continue to embrace it because of the studio technique and depth of concept that underlies the genre. It is a type of art that involves …

There is urgency of this message in Zulu’s works If there is a word Rwanda artists Mohamed Ndabaye, who is also known by his artistic name Zulu, likes to use when describing why he paints, it is “to immortalise”. “I created this painting to celebrate the joy of motherhood and …

Paris, France | AFP |  A French artist who hatched nine eggs after sitting on them for three weeks has been condemned by an animals rights group for depriving the chicks of a mother. Abraham Poincheval hardly slept in the 23 days he spent nesting inside a glass vitrine in …

Uganda artist Waswad steps into controversy By Dominic Muwanguzi The opening day of Ugandan artist Donald Augustine Wasswa aka Waswad at Afriart in Kampala has gone down in local art lore because of one of the works on display titled controversially as `My Screw ups 1, 2& 3’. This is …

Joseph Mayanja aka Jose Chameleone has hailed Ugandan artist Andrew Ainamani ‘Prince Andrew’ after he released his latest work, a portrait of the Chameleon family. The portrait includes wife Daniella and children Amma Christian Mayanja, Alfa Joseph Mayanja, Abba Marcus Mayanja and Alba Shyne Mayanja. “Every man is gifted differently! …

Lack of originality of vision, spontaneity of expression It is a truism that art does not exist in a vacuum; it is built on a synergy of ideas and approaches within a community. Art production is informed by a culture or sub culture. Whereas there is an obvious element of …

An artist incubating chicken eggs is no joke. But is it art? An artist is sitting on a chair in a Paris art museum over a dozen chicken eggs until they hatch. This is not an April Fools’ joke. “I will, broadly speaking, become a chicken,” says Abraham Poincheval, a …